Sutro Tunnel. 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON. NATHANIEL 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, - 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 13, 1873. 




The House having under consideration the bill 
(H. R. No. 1173) to aid in the construction of the 
‘Sutro tunnel from the proceeds of the sale of 
mineral lands, together with an amendment in the 
nature of a substitute— 

Mr. BANKS said : 

Mr. Speaker : This bill provides that for 
the purpose of aiding in the construction of 
the Sutro tunnel the United States will make 
a loan of $2,000,000 to the company, pro¬ 
vided that at the same time the company shall 
expend an equal sum upon this work. 

Mr. MERRIAM. I would like to know if 
there cannot be some arrangement made by 
which members outside of this committee 
shall have an opportunity to discuss this bill. 

Mr. BANKS. So far as the House is willing 
to permit discussion, the committee desire it to 
take place. It is not my purpose to curtail 
debate by calling the previous question. 

This bill provides that all the property and 
franchises of this company of every character 
shall be mortgaged to the United States as a 
security for the repayment of the loan. The 
company has already expended one and a 
half million dollars on this work. I am in¬ 
formed by gentlemen connected with the Gov¬ 
ernment, members of both Houses of Con¬ 
gress of the highest character, who have 
themselves visited the premises, that the 
operations of the company appear to have 
been carried on in good faith, and that the 
amount of work done, and money expended, 
is far beyond what was represented to them 
by those interested in this work, before they 
visited the premises. Its cost will be about 
five to six million dollars. Of this sum one 
and a half million has already been expended. 
If the loan now asked shall be granted two 
millions more must be raised by the company 
in compliance with the provisions of this bill. 
The company will therefore expend three and 
a half to four million dollars at least for the 

*■ '' / V / / 7 \ ; ,/ tyfT L'ln-st 


completion of the work, the whole of which 
will be mortgaged to the Government insecur¬ 
ity for the payment of the loan of $2,000,000. 

This bill also provides that half of all that 
is received as royalties by the company after 
the construction of the tunnel shall be paid 
to the United States to reimburse the Govern¬ 
ment for the aid solicited. It does not pro¬ 
pose an immediate appropriation of money, 
but it will be rather an agreement on the part 
of the Government to aid the company in the 
construction of this work on the conditions I 
have stated. 

If hereafter Congress shall appropriate the 
money to carry out this engagement, the two 
Houses of Congress will have an opportunity, 
through the report of commissioners after 
each payment for the construction of five hun¬ 
dred feet of this tunnel, to ascertain exactly 
the condition of the work, -the prospect of 
its early completion, and the fulfillment of the 
conditions imposed upon the company. 

There was no member of this House less in¬ 
clined to support a measure of this kind than 
I was when it was presented to me as a mem¬ 
ber of the Committee on Mines and Mining. I 
had no desire to be on that committee. I had 
no interest in and no knowledge of this work, 
and I was not favorably disposed to it as it 
was at first presented to my mind. But upon 
examination, careful and thorough examina- 
tinon of the testimony and the report connected 
with the case, I am constrained to say that I 
think it one of the most important meas¬ 
ures ever presented to the Congress of the 
United States. I believe that if, apart from 
all questions of interest or of constitutional 
power, the members of this House could care¬ 
fully and thoroughly consider the question in 
all its bearings, very few would vote against it. 
But I know, of course, that ifc%is a difficult mat¬ 
ter to get the attention of the House, and still 
more difficult to enable gentlemen in the press 










of public business to comprehend thoroughly 
a measure so complicated and novel as this. 

To gentlemen on the other side of the 
House who have constitutional scruples as to 
the right of the Government to aid in measures 
of this kind, I wish to say that there is a just, 
a wise, and important distinction between tem¬ 
porary aid to such an enterprise as this and 
the permanent aid demanded by those con¬ 
nected with other industrial enterprises. In 
the early history of our Government there was 
but slight objection to the principle that where 
a public work of great importance was re¬ 
quired for the advancement of the national 
interests, temporary aid in the execution of 
that work was permitted by the Constitution; 
and measures giving aid under such restric¬ 
tions were supported by men of all parties. 
It was to permanent and perpetual subsidies, 
and monopolies, never ceasing, never dimin¬ 
ishing, always increasing, that opposition was 
excited and which led to the foundation of 
parties upon the principle which now controls 
so many minds in this House. 

But I am constrained to believe that if the 
gentlemen on the other side who entertain 
these constitutional scruples will examine this 
question carefully, they will see the distinction 
between the bill before us and other measures, 
in another important view. This is a demo¬ 
cratic measure. It is an interest of the people. 
It is a proposition of the hard working labor¬ 
ing men—the miners, who pursue the most 
hazardous, the most wearing, and perhaps the 
most dangerous of all the ordinary occupa¬ 
tions of men. The proposition is made on 
behalf of such a class as this that the Govern¬ 
ment shall extend its aid to carry into effect an 
improved system of work, which is more for 
the interest of the Government than it is even 
for themselves. In this view the case presents 
the very best instance of a proposal made to 
the Government, by laboring men who seek 
assistance in the prosecution of one of the 
great laboring interests of the country, as dis¬ 
tinguished from the demands of capitalists. 
I hope the House will be willing to consider 
the measure in this regard. It is an important 
distinction, which will unsettle and remove 
apparently well-founded objections. 

The mining interests of the country, Mr. 
Speaker, were early regarded as unimportant. 

I remember very well hearing Mr. Benton say 
that California and the Pacific coast would be 
worth nothing to the United States until the 
mines were exhausted. Our experience has 
shown us on the contrary that the products 
of the mines of California and Australia are 
to-day the foundation of the present manufac¬ 
turing and commercial prosperity of the United 
States and Great Britain. If we look to re¬ 
lief from the financial troubles of this country, 
to an escape from those revulsions which have 
heretofore come upon us so destructively at reg¬ 
ular periods, we shall find the only escape 
from calamities that strike down the interests 
of all men alike, will be in the increase of 
actual and solid wealth as against the specula¬ 
tive enterprises of the country. In the in¬ 


crease of the grain crop of the Ohio and Mis¬ 
sissippi valleys, of the cotton crop of the 
South, and the gold and silver product of the 
Pacific coast—in these three elements of 
national wealth, that are the equivalents of 
gold, lie the guarantee of our prosperity and 
the security of the financial affairs of both the 
Government and the people. The two first 
interests have occupied the attention of the 
Government from its foundation. Let us give 
a little time and some friendly consideration 
to the last, that is as essential to our prosper¬ 
ity as either of the others. 

What is this proposition ? The Comstock 
lode, or lead, a mineral vein existing in 
Nevada, is pronounced by experts in the 
mineral sciences, both in this country and 
Europe, to be one of the most important and 
permanent and the richest mineral vein now ex¬ 
isting in the world. There have been but three 
on this continent that are to be compared with 
it—the Great Potosi in Bolivia, the Veta Madre, 
and the V6ta Grande in Mexico. The first, 
$1,200,000,000; the second, $800,000,000; 
and the third, $650,000,000. The mines of the 
Comstock lode have already yielded $140,000,- 
000 since their discovery in 1859, with the 
imperfect system of mining which we have 
adopted. And it is estimated by men who 
have examined the subject that when the 
tunnel shall be completed the annual yield will 
be $30,000,000 per annum. Mr. Sutro him¬ 
self believes it will be nearer $50,000,000, and 
in that opinion I concur. Mr. Michel Cheva¬ 
lier, a member of the Institute, in France, 
says it appears to be one of the richest silver 
fields ever discovered in America. So that 
taking an average between the present product 
of the mines, about $15,000,000 annually, and 
$50,000,000, which Mr. Sutro estimates as the 
annual yield when the tunnel is completed, the 
product for thirty years in actual and substan¬ 
tial wealth will be more than $1,200,000,000, 
a tenth part of the entire product of gold and 
silver since the discovery of America, a period 
of three hundred and eighty-one years. 

It is substantial and enduring wealth ; not a 
product consumed day by day and year by 
year; not perishable; not consumed in the 
ordinary business of men ; but it enters into 
all the affairs of life. Every day it stimulates 
trade and production of every kind. It pro¬ 
duces and reproduces continually wealth in 
every form. Month by month and year by year, 
through the presence and power of this influ¬ 
ence alone, it doubles, trebles, and quadruples 
the products of the industry of the country. 

This vein is situated in the State of Nevada, 
as I have already stated. It has an extent of 
four miles or more. As I am told, its width 
equals that of Pennsylvania avenue. So, if 
the House will consider a vein more or less 
rich in gold and silver which extends four 
miles in length, having a width of Pennsyl¬ 
vania avenue, it will have a picture of the 
aggregate of the rich deposits of these mines. 
The Comstock vein is said by the commission 
sent out by the Government of the United 
States, and by Professor Raymond, the United 








3 


States commissioner of mineral statistics, to 
be a “ true fissure vein;” that is to say, it is 
not a surface mine. It is a rent, a fissure in 
the crust of the earth, made by powers con¬ 
cealed in infinite depths below the surface of 
the earth; and that fissure, that rent, is filled 
up by chemical process with a material foreign 
to that of the country rock by which it is sur¬ 
rounded, which more or less is impregnated 
in higher or lower grades with gold and silver. 

Now, sir, the miners who are at work upon 
it penetrate this vein from the surface. Their 
property is in narrow strips of ten to twelve 
hundred feet in length. They penetrate from 
the surface by perpendicular shafts. From 
these shafts, at distances of about a hun¬ 
dred feet, they open what they call drifts in 
any direction in which the precious metals 
appear to lie. They draw up by means of 
engines the rock they dislodge. They take it 
to the reducing mills. The commissioners 
of the United States say that these mills 
are established where water is to be found, 
and some of them are eighteen miles distant 
from the mouth of the shaft from which the 
ore is taken. They pump in air for the relief 
and support of the miners, and they drain 
from the shafts and from the drifts or galler¬ 
ies the immense quantities of water constantly 
collecting, which is regarded as the miners’ 
enemy, lift it up to the mouth of the shaft 
by machinery impelled by steam, and then 
pour it off upon the country. This is their 
work. The deeper they go down, of course 
the more it costs, so that upon the testimony 
of everybody acquainted with the science of 
mining, both in this country and Europe, they 
soon reach a depth below which it will not pay to 
work, when these mines, as were the mines 
before in Mexico, will be abandoned on that 
account. 

This, Mr. Speaker, is the case. The prop¬ 
osition now is to establish the modern and 
improved system of mining based on scientific 
principles, which has been almost universally 
adopted in Europe. It is proposed, instead of 
working from the surface down, to enter this 
mouutain at a convenient point at its base, 
two thousand feet below the surface ; to con¬ 
struct horizontally at right angles with the lode, 
or vein, a tunnel four miles in length, which 
will reach the mineral deposits, as I have said, 
two thousand feet below the surface, the point 
at which the present shafts are sunk, and from 
this to construct a gallery the whole length of 
the mine on a line with the vein, and to work 
from this gallery or tunnel, above and below 
as they please. When they commence to work 
above, all the waste rock or ore which they dis¬ 
lodge will fall below, and deposit itself in the 
cars waiting to receive it and be drawn to the 
reducing mills (which the bill before us pro¬ 
vides shall be established at the mouth of the 
tunnel) by a level railway, requiring but slight 
motive power, and affording the easiest and 
cheapest possible transportation. 

The water which is held in the mountains 
above will fall of its own motion to the gal¬ 
leries and be conducted to the mouth of the 


tunnel, where it will be used as a motive power 
for the reducing mills, thus saving the ex¬ 
pense of engines and all the machinery now 
used. The miners will be sustained by the 
ventilation which comes in to the surface 
through the shafts, some of which, it is said, 
are now sunk nearly to the line of the tunnel. 
Currents of pure air will pass through those 
shafts into all the drifts and galleries from the 
mouth of the tunnel where the reducing mills 
are placed. Thus there will be limitless cur¬ 
rents of air passing through shafts, drifts, and 
tunnel at all times for the relief and sustenance 
of the miners. That is what is accomplished 
in the important matter of ventilation. 

The question is whether the miners desire 
it or not. That is to ask whether they desire 
to be relieved of the great enemy to all mining 
industry, the accumulation of water, which they 
are now compelled to pump from the shafts 
and drifts to the surface. It is to ask them 
whether they want free air, pure air circulat¬ 
ing from the outside, in the place of that 
which is now pumped into the mines, exactly 
as it is pumped into this Hall by the means 
of steam-engines. It is to ask whether they 
want to be supported and strengthened by the 
application of modern science in the pursuit of 
their business, as every other species of indus¬ 
try is supported. It is a question whether they 
want to accumulate by their industry a share 
in the great increase of the product of gold 
and silver which will follow from the applica¬ 
tion of this principle to this business of mining. 

Who opposes it? You will hear much said, 
Mr. Speaker, in the discussion of this ques¬ 
tion, of the opposition of the Bank of Califor¬ 
nia. And there is no doubt, from what the 
committee has heard, great reason to believe 
that gentlemen connected with the Bank of 
California have been much interested and very 
determined in opposition to this work. But 
we take no part in any quarrel against the 
Bank of California or anybody else. We 
merely say this: that while the miners are in¬ 
terested in the success of this work, and in the 
application of these recent results of modern 
mining science, the capitalists of that section 
of the country, whoever they are and whatever 
they represent, are interested for themselves 
and not for the miners. The capitalists own 
for themselves a railway that transports the 
material, waste rock and ore, that is taken 
from the mines to the reducing mills, one of 
which the commissioners tell us is eighteen 
miles distant. They own the wood and all 
the materials of fuel necessary to run the ma¬ 
chinery. They have a control naturally of all the 
markets necessary for the supply of the miners 
and the laboring men. And through these 
advantages of capital, of which we might have 
some right and some reason to complain, they 
make a profit which consumes in the end all 
the results of the labor of those employed in 
the mines in the hazardous and arduous pur¬ 
suit of their industry. The miners grow poor, 
as they have done elsewhere, because their 
pursuit is one of great labor, great danger, and 
great hazard ; while every day the capitalists, 








4 


who speculate on their necessities, are grow¬ 
ing richer. The capitalist takes no risks. He 
wants no share in the uncertainties of mining. 
His profits are in the certain, enormous, and 
sometimes extortionate profits which they 
make by supplying the daily necessities of 
laboring men. 

Before one of the committees of the House 
it was said in relation to another great 
industry of this country that no capitalist 
thinks of taking a part in the execution of a 
project or an enterprise at the start. It is only 
when it has been projected, money has been 
expended, when it has been carried as far it 
can be by those who are immediately inter¬ 
ested, and they have failed, that the cap¬ 
italists step in and demand that franchise, 
property, rights, everything that has been ex¬ 
pended in the execution of the work shall be 
turned over to them, and they will follow it for 
their own advantage, owning everything, and 
making, at the least, a profit of one hundred, 
and I believe in some instances from six hun¬ 
dred to a thousand per cent. 

The capitalists who surround and control 
the business connected with these mines 
occupy the same position. They own every¬ 
thing which is necessary to the support of the 
miner ; they in fact control the very air that 
he breathes, and can make him pay whatever 
they choose for the use of the articles that are 
necessary for his support. Therefore the cap¬ 
italists are naturally opposed to the construc¬ 
tion of works that will change the relations of 
miners and consumers to the capitalists who 
monopolize and control markets, and from 
whose well-paid aid alone they can get the 
results of their hard and hazardous labor in 
the deep and noisome recesses of the mines. 
If the tunnel is constructed the miners will 
be obliged to pay but a small proportion for 
the transportation of the rock which they take 
out of the shafts a distance of eighteen miles, 
in order that it may be reduced. They will 
not be obliged to pay as apart of the expenses 
of their business for the air which is pumped 
into these shafts to support life where they live 
for awhile and are certain to suffer a prema¬ 
ture death in the end. They will not be 
obliged to pay for draining the shafts, drifts, 
and galleries by costly steam pumps the water 
that naturally accumulates there and threatens 
them with deluge or drowning. All these 
things they escape. And the capitalists at 
the same time lose the opportunity of taking 
advantage of their necessities with constantly 
increasing expenditures that are necessarily 
incurred for these and other purposes. 

Mr. Speaker, I have said this much for the 
parties that are interested. Now, what inter¬ 
est has the Government of the United States? 
The annual product of gold and silver in the 
world is about $200,000,000. The American 
commissioner at the Paris exposition esti¬ 
mated it at $171,000,000. Mr. John W. Tay¬ 
lor, an officer of the Treasury of the United 
States, puts it at $225,000,000. It is a fair 
estimate that the production throughout the 
world annually is about $200,000,000. The 


annual product of the United States is stated 
by Professor Raymond, in his reports to Con¬ 
gress, at $58,000,000 ; so that we produce more 
than a quarter of the aggregate product of all 
the gold and silver in the world. If we in¬ 
crease by the application of the most approved 
methods of mining the product of the Com¬ 
stock and other lodes, as by the success of this 
measure, we shall undoubtedly make our pro¬ 
duct equal at least to one half of the product 
of all nations. We will add, therefore, 
$50,000,000 at least to what we already pro¬ 
duce, giving us by that means an annual aggre¬ 
gate of $100,000,000. 

What is the natural effect of such an in¬ 
crease of the precious metals? It enters into 
circulation* cheers, stimulates, and encourages 
industry of every description. The merchant, 
the manufacturer, the artisan, every man, what¬ 
ever may be his calling, is encouraged and sup¬ 
ported by an increase in the solid money of the 
country. We have already done something in 
this way by an increase of paper money, but 
gentlemen around me will remember that an 
increase of paper money, while it relieves us 
for the moment, may ultimately bring to us 
and those for whom we act not only disaster, 
but possibly perpetual ruin. Let us reinforce, 
then, this excess of paper money by increasing 
the production of gold and silver to such an 
extent as to make it equal to gold and silver, 
which every man understands is essential to 
the security as well as the prosperity of the 
country ! Let us open these mines, the richest 
the world haseverknown, thatare here beneath 
our feet in the very soil upon which we tread, 
and take from it the precious metals that the 
experience of all nations has proved to be the 
most solid and unchanging form of the world’s 
wealth. You want specie paymeuts ! Is it 
possible for us to reestablish specie payments 
in the present condition of things ? 

My idea of specie payment is that a man 
can pay in specie when he has as much or more 
of specie as will iu one form or another equal 
the amount of his debts. Nobody else can 
pay specie. Some people think that specie pay¬ 
ment is a matter of confidence, and others that 
it is a subject for statute regulation. But after 
we have coursed all the measures and appli¬ 
ances that invention can supply we shall come 
back to the wise conclusion of our fathers, who 
were hard money men, that to pay specie you 
must have specie. A man who has specie can 
pay specie when it is wanted. If he has it it 
is not wanted. If he does not have it it is cer¬ 
tain to be demanded. A man who has paper 
money can pay in paper money; and one who 
has neither specie nor paper can meet his obli¬ 
gations by the issue of his promissory notes, 
when his creditors will take them, and, like 
Micawber, thank God his accounts are settled 
at last. This is the law o fthe world. We can¬ 
not pay in specie when we have no specie. We 
cannot pay in paper money when we have no 
paper money. We must first have credit and 
then paper and then solid gold and silver. 
This is the only course open to us. During our 
late terrible struggle the Government had 











5 


credit , and then paper money, whose value was 
in proportion to the credit of the Government. 
Its opponents had no credit, and their paper, 
money was worthless as its credit; and our 
credit and paper circulation will be .in the end 
as. unsubstantial and worthless unless, to use a 
military phrase, we reinforce it by supplement 
ing in forms that the world will recognize as 
substantial and enduring. And this can be 
done first and best by opening the mines 
beneath our feet, applying to their develop¬ 
ment the most approved methods suggested by 
experience and by science, and by the increase 
of actual wealth in the substantial and com¬ 
paratively unchanging forms of gold and sil¬ 
ver, stimulate and increase the production of 
other products that in our export trade are 
counted as gold and silver. It is not true, as 
we were told thirty years ago, that the gold 
discoveries of 1848 would be detrimental and 
destructive as they had been to Mexico and 
Spain in earlier periods of history. On the 
contrary, we see now what has been the advan¬ 
tage of the increased products of gold in Cali¬ 
fornia and Australia, and we are better able to 
estimate the advantages that may arise from 
the further increased product of gold and sil¬ 
ver in stimulating the industries of the coun¬ 
tries which control this product, and if we can 
add $50,000 000 annually to our product of 
precious metals (as we may by the construc¬ 
tion of this tunnel and its effect upon the min¬ 
ing interest generally) it will, with the in¬ 
creased product of grain and cotton that 
naturally follows the increased circulation, 
both cf which articles are the equivalents of 
gold in our export trade, afford us at least the 
means of giving to an unsubstantial and fluc¬ 
tuating circulating medium an enduring and 
permanent specie basis. We shall never find 
any other means of accomplishing this object, 
so much desired. 

DEMAND FOR INCREASED CIRCULATION. 

There is nothing more essential to successful 
industry than the easy and abundant flow of 
money ; and there is no demand made upon the 
Government more imperative and constant 
than that which calls for an increase of the 
circulating medium. It is no wild and sense¬ 
less cry suggested by indolence or speculation. 
The necessity which it represents is at times 
universally felt. It is a demand which is sup¬ 
ported by the highest authority, if authority 
were wanting to strengthen our own experi¬ 
ence. The fact is well expressed by Hume, 
the historian. This is his language: 

“In every kingdom, into which money begins to 
flow in increased abundance, everything takes a new 
face. Labor and industry gain life, merchants be¬ 
come enterprising, manufacturers more diligent and 
skillful, and even the farmer follows his plow with 
greater alacrity and attention. When gold and sil¬ 
ver are diminishing the workman has no employ¬ 
ment, though he pays the same for everything in the 
market. The farmer cannot dispose of his corn and 
cattle, though he pays the same rent. Poverty, beg¬ 
gary, and sloth ensues, as is easily seen.” 

The stronger, because more recent, testimony 
of Alison is to the same effect: 

“Upon the gold discoveries in California and Aus¬ 
tralia the annual supply of gold and silver for the 


use of the world was increased from an average of 
£10,000,000 to £35,000,000 sterling. Prices rapidly 
rose, wages advanced in the same proportion, ex¬ 
ports and imports enormously increased, and crime 
and misery rapidly diminished. Wheat rose from 
forty-five shillings to sixty-five shillings; but the 
wages advanced in the same proportion. The in¬ 
crease in wages was thirty per cent, in five years. 
The effect of this immense addition to the currency 
and the industry of all nations, and especially of 
Great Britain, was prodigious. It raised her exports 
from £58,000,000 in 1851 to £97,000,000 in 1854, and 
£115,000,000 in 1856, and increased her imports from 
£157,000,000 in 1851 to £172,000,000 in 1856. This in¬ 
crease of metallic currency saved Great Britain from 
bankruptcy.” 

Numberless authorities in support of these 
historical facts might easily be cited. The 
experience of every man affords evidence of 
their truth. No country suffers more from the 
dearth of money than our own. It is the only 
land where legitimate industry is deprived of 
the means requisite for the full development 
of national wealth. In other countries money is 
made cheap by long continued and wise finan¬ 
cial policy. Products are exported instead of 
money, and the increase of foreign commerce 
enriches them in the same measure that it 
impoverishes us. The prosperity of other na¬ 
tions is assured by an enlarged foreign trade. 
With us it is a source of well founded alarm, 
because our exports are in monstrous dispro¬ 
portion to our imports, and we are compelled 
to sell our own property for a depreciated cur¬ 
rency to pay for the property of other nations 
in the equivalents of silver and gold. 4 

With three natural products of the soil—cot¬ 
ton, grain, and gold—each of which can be 
made to control the markets of the world, 
we are the prey of nations, without any of the 
advantages that can be considered the equiva¬ 
lents of our own. The dearth of money is the 
well grounded complaint of the producers of 
these great staples. Speculation has been 
enthroned in the place of legitimate industry, 
and the money necessary to the development 
of these products in the South, the Mississippi 
valley, and the mineral States, is swept into 
the vaults of one or two cities, where it is used 
to gorge speculators and gamblers. 

We are restrained by wise considerations from 
the increase of our present system of currency. 
It has not the requisite elements of stability, 
because it does not represent actual wealth. 
However much we may be made to feel, by 
the representations of the people, that more 
money is needed, we shrink from enlarging 
the issues of depreciated and irredeemable 
paper money which was substituted, from 1860 
to the present time, for the steady increase of 
gold and silver which occurred from 1850 to 
1860. But how will it be if we can add to the 
volume of currency fifty, or thirty, or even 
twenty millions of gold'and silver every year? 
Is there a man of the producing or industrial 
classes that will not be benefited by it? Is 
there anything in the experience of other 
nations to lead us to fear such a result ? Is 
there a sound or accepted doctrine of political 
economy that is violated by it? Will it not 
stimulate every kind of legitimate industry, 
increase the actual wealth of the country, and 
thus give to the combined circulation of specie 












6 


and paper a convertibility and an actual value 
that is impossible in the present condition of 
public affairs? And in what way can we do 
more to produce such a result than by aiding 
in the development of a mineral vein like the 
Comstock lode, the richest probably in the 
world? 

ITS EFFECT UPON THE PUBLIC DEBT. 

The increase of money when it represents 
actual values has other important and perma¬ 
nent influences. Mr. Hume says: 

“It materially affects an existing debt. When a 
debt exists in a fixed number of dollars the increase 
in the quantity of gold to its depreciation in value 
reduces the debt in the same proportion.” 

Mr. John Stuart Mills tells us that “ if the 
money in circulation is doubled prices will be 
doubled; if increased one fourth prices will 
increase one fourth.” But a fixed obligation, 
like that of the national debt, remains the same; 
and its burden is reduced in proportion to the 
increased value of property consequent upon 
the increased quantity of money; and it is 
extinguished, not by sacrificing, but by increas¬ 
ing the wealth and incomes of the people. 
The bondholder shares with the rest of the 
community the prosperity of the country. He 
is relieved from the impending danger of the 
payment of his debts by the increase of paper 
money without value, and bringing with it a 
wide-spread and general ruin. Such changes 
of value as are produced by an increase in 
the volume of specie currency are so gradual 
as not to be appreciated from year to year ; but 
the result in a number of years is inevitable. 
They do not materially affect individuals, for 
the cost of living and the rate of wages rise 
also ; but they stimulate enterprise and create 
a general and lasting prosperity. It is to such 
general and permanent benefits that the meas¬ 
ure before the House is directed—the increase 
of currency and the increase of actual wealth 
at the same time, by a wise and efficient de¬ 
velopment of the rich deposits of gold and 
silver that surround us. Mr. Lincoln felt this 
necessity when he said in one of his earliest 
messages: 

“The immense mineral resources of the country 
ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. Every 
step in that direction improves the resources of the 
Government and diminishes the burdens of the 
people. Extraordinary measures ought to be adopted 
to promote that end.” 

Is it possible that the resources necessary to 
produce such results as these are resting 
beneath our feet without right or power on 
our part to touch them? It is to open the 
earth and take out solid forms of wealth that 
will make our currency convertible into specie, 
relieve the people of the burdens of the public 
debt withoutrepudiatingit, and place our varied 
industries upon the hard-money basis, where the 
founders of the Government sought to place 
them. Is there any tradition of public policy 
violated, any party doctrine repudiated, by a 
measure looking only to such results as these? 

If an objection is made to the participation 
of the Government in such a work, the answer 
is that it is only by the aid of the Government 
that it can be completed. The hazards of 


mining industry are too great for individual 
laborers or capitalists. Every Government 
interested in the success of this industry for 
more than a thousand years has been obliged 
to aid and'protect it. And we must do as 
other nations have done if we hope for the 
results they have gained. 

If it be said that we cannot aid a corporation, 
even in so important a work as this, the answer 
is conclusive: it can be done only by private 
citizens, or a corporation composed of private 
citizens, with the aid of the Government. 
Wisely or unwisely, the Government has parted 
with its title to the mineral land upon which 
the experiment is to be made. Itcannot reclaim 
it without purchase, nor without changing its 
policy for nearly a century. The work is too 
great for individuals, and if the Government 
cannot aid a company organized for this pur¬ 
pose it cannot be done at all. There is in this 
single fact a distinction between this and other 
petitions for Government aid, in the condition 
of the parties, the magnitude of the operations, 
the objects to be gained, as well as in the 
duration of the assistance that may be ex¬ 
tended, which the House ought at least to 
consider. 

Now, sir, I think I may assume that the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States has a direct and 
most important interest in this subject. The 
commissioners of the United States sent to 
examine the premises report to the House that 
the enterprise is a practicable one. There is 
no doubt, therefore, that it can be completed. 
Other important enterprises have been less 
fortunate in their inception than this. 

When my honorable colleague [Mr. Crock¬ 
er] was first associated with the Hoosac tunnel 
in Massachusetts we were told, for I was hon¬ 
ored by the association of my name in an 
unimportant manner with that enterprise, that 
the tunnel could never be constructed; that 
engineers starting from different sides of the 
mountain could never direct their galleries so 
as to meet one another ; that in the recesses 
of the Hoosac mountain there were number¬ 
less and limitless quicksands which would 
baffle every effort for the construction of such 
an opening as would allow a railway train to 
pass ; that it would entail upon the State the 
loss and waste of many millions, and never be 
completed. Yet within a few days we have 
witnessed the fact that the galleries did meet 
each other; that there were no quicksands; that 
the cost of the work has been reasonable; there 
has been no unrequited waste of public money; 
there is no abandoned “ hole in the mountain ” 
to disgrace the State, and that the people believe 
even now, before the work is wholly completed, 
that the transfer of its control to the capital¬ 
ists of any other State or country would be a 
species of treason to Massachusetts, of which 
no honorable citizen would be guilty. That has 
been the experience of Massachusetts. She 
has constructed a tunnel of four and a half 
miles through a mountain supposed to be of 
impenetrable stone, merely for the purpose of 
shortening by a few miles her route to the 
commerce of the West, with not a particle of 







7 


coal or iron, copper, lead, silver, or gold from 
summit to base. The engineers of Mont 
Cenis, it is said, copied from the Massachu¬ 
setts engineers their methods of perforating, 
mining, and blasting the rock. The people are 
satisfied, and the world has been in some slight 
measure benefited. But we have no such doubts 
to encounter here. 

And so it will be when this tunnel that 
reaches the Comstock lode shall be constructed 
for the purpose of increasing the supply of 
gold and silver in this country. Let gentle¬ 
men who have constitutional scruples about 
the Government aiding in any way any public 
work ask themselves whether there is any 
other or better way of reaching specie pay¬ 
ment and a solid basis of silver aod gold than 
by increasing the product of gold and silver in 
the way now proposed. 

There is one thing to which your attention will 
be called, and to which I wish to refer for a mo¬ 
ment, for I see I have but little time left. The 
commissioners say that there is no necessity 
for this tunnel for purposes of ventilation or 
draining. I admit it; there is no necessity for 
that. There is no necessity for our being 
here ; there is no necessity, Mr. Speaker, for 
you or any other member to be in the Speak¬ 
er’s chair. The world can get along without 
us. The House of Representatives might ad¬ 
journ, and the world still be well ruled and 
governed. 

There was no necessity for the cotton-gin, 
the power-loom, the steam-engine, the steam¬ 
ship, the locomotive, the sewing machines; 
there was no necessity for the railway; 
there was no necessity for the telegraph ; we 
were getting along very well without such 
things. I can remember when an engineer 
appeared in the neighborhood of Harvard 
University for the purpose of surveying a 
route for a railroad from the city of Boston 
to the city of Fitchburg, represented by my 
honorable friend, [Mr. Crocker,] a man came 
out of his house with an ax on his shoulder and 
said he would split open the head of any man 
who should undertake to survey a route for a 
railroad through his lands. He evidently 
thought there was no necessity for a railway in 
that part of the country at least. 

There was no necessity in the estimation 
of many wise men for many of those things 
that we regard as improvements of great im¬ 
portance. So in that sense there is no neces¬ 
sity of this tunnel for ventilation or drainage. 
It would be better for the miners if they could 
be relieved of the presence of water in the 
mines, and if they could have pure air while 
at work. But what matters it to the capital¬ 
ists whether they have it or not, whether the 
miners die in the deep recesses of the mount¬ 
ain or not? There is no “necessity” for the 
Government to aid them in any way. But the 
great heart of this House and of the people 
of this country will take a different view of it. 
And though they may say in a religious and 
reverential spirit that there is no necessity for 
anything that man may do, there may be 
many things that he can do to improve the 


condition of his race, to elevate the character 
of the Government, to strengthen its hold 
upon the affectionate and kind remembrance 
of those who shall come after him. So in 
this sense there is a necessity for our doing 
this work. 

Necessity! why, sir, there is no necessity 
for necessity itself! It is a supererogation. 
We could get along without what are called 
necessities, if we could escape them. Sa we 
can get along without this enterprise to which 
our attention is now directed. 

But the miners interested say, and so does the 
Superintendent of the Bureau of Mines and 
Mining, as well as the commissioners sent to 
examine it, that if this work shall be con¬ 
structed it will be a work of vast national 
importance, and that it will yield an infinite 
amount compared with the expenditures in¬ 
curred in making it. We are willing to rest 
our proposition upon the report of the com¬ 
mission and of the officers of the Government. 

They, however, are entitled to this reserva¬ 
tion, and it is right that we should make it. 
No officer of the Government, and no discreet 
and wise man, in the discussion of a matter of 
this importance will so frame his recommenda¬ 
tion or his report as to force upon us or upon 
any branch of the Government the acts which 
he may think best to be done. They report 
what they regard to be the truth of the case, 
representing the difficulties and the embarrass¬ 
ments, together with the advantages and the 
possibilities ; and they leave to us, where it 
belongs, the responsibility of the work. In 
this interpretation, I am free to say that the 
recommendations of all the officers of the 
Government sustain in the strongest degree the 
recommendation which the Committee on 
Mines and Mining has made. Eight of the 
nine members of the committee are hearty 
and cordial supporters of this bill. A similar 
committee in another body makes the same 
report upon the subject, after a thorough and 
careful examination. The modifications which 
have been made in the measure by that other 
committee are embraced in our bill; so that 
the two reports are substantially identical in 
the request that the Government shall aid the 
constructors of the tunnel to the extent of the 
proposed loan of $2,000,000. One million five 
hundred thousand dollars have already been 
expended in the substantial work with a degree 
of success which I am told by such men as Mr. 
Casserly, of California, surprises one who has 
the opportunity to compare the work done 
with representations made by the most ardent 
promoters and friends of the tunnel. The 
statement of Senator Casserly is fortified by 
that of several other gentlemen, to whom I 
have felt myself compelled to refer for informa¬ 
tion upon an enterprise which they had in¬ 
spected with more or less interest and care. 

Let me say a word of Mr. Sutro. It is some¬ 
times the case that a man by dedicating him¬ 
self to a great work, although prompted by 
personal or private interest, becomes a public 
benefactor. Mr. Sutro is a man who appears 
to stand in this position. He came among us 











8 


a stranger. He came here to advocate an idea 
that was not only unacceptable but repulsive to 
many persons who felt deep interest in the min¬ 
ing interests of the country. Such was its effect 
upon my own mind. Year by year for eight 
years he has grown in the respect of members 
of this House. They have sustained him, I 
believe, in every request he has made. He has 
encountered opposition such as few other men 
have encountered in their plans, but he has 
adhered with singular fidelity to his views and 
stands triumphant against that opposition. 
It is because his cause is just; and I am sure I 
can say with entire sincerity, that if the mem¬ 
bers of the House could find time to examine 
the numerous statements in connection with 
this subject, official or otherwise, they will find 
that Mr. Sutro’s representations and opinions 
upon the subject are not only supported, but 
t hat they might have been made stronger than 
he has made them in the presentation of his 
own case. 

He has, therefore, not only an important 
national interest to recommend him, but he 
has besides the advantage of the honorable 
reputation he has made in his intercourse with 
committees and members of the House. It is 
truth which sustains him—the truth which is 
the life of nations, truth, which is the strength 
of men wherever and in whatever contest they 
may be engaged. So long as he is thus sup¬ 
ported, whether his success shall come sooner 
or later, the House, I am sure, will be willing 
to sustain him in every just and proper repre¬ 
sentation he may make. 

He represents the people of the Pacific 
coast. With few exceptions, the masses of 
the people and the greater number of the 


Representatives of the Pacific coast are with 
him. Every territorial Delegate and nearly 
all the members on this floor from the min¬ 
eral sections of the country—there are, I 
believe, but few exceptions—are his support¬ 
ers against the claims and the clamor of spec¬ 
ulators and capitalists who have interests 
adverse to those of the people. Wherever 
the people of these States or Territories are 
fully represented they will stand generally in 
favor of the project he has sustained with so 
much enthusiasm and energy. Upon such 
representations the House, I believe, will give 
this question a fair and candid considera¬ 
tion. 

Mr. Speaker, I am aware that this is not a 
favorable time to present a subject of this 
character. Gentlemen are restrained from 
following their own convictions as to the pub¬ 
lic interests on account of matters mainly, if 
not wholly, collateral, which have occurred in 
relation to other questions. But we must re¬ 
member that we are legislators, and that how¬ 
ever important it may be to protect ourselves, 
it is still our duty at all hazards to look to the 
interests of the Government and of the people. 
It has been well said, if we do justice to 
others we shall be just to ourselves. It is for 
justice we plead ; justice to those who pursue 
an arduous and hazardous calling, and for an 
enterprising and I believe honest man, strug¬ 
gling for the promotion of important interests 
to which he has dedicated his life, hoping, like 
other benefactors of the race, to win an honor¬ 
able name, an adequate reward for his labors. 
For justice, 

“Every place a temple, 

And every season summer.” 


Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 


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